Tramway's arrival to Indore gets rusty

After the initial hullabaloo over proposal of tram project for the city, the wheels suddenly seem to have stopped spinning.

Tata Realty and Infrastructure Limited, which expressed interest in building a tramway parallel, all of a sudden seems to have pulled out from the idea.

The proposal was to build a tramway parallel to MR 10, from the Devi Ahilya airport to Bypass Road via the super corridor. The tramway, proposed along a roughly 20km stretch, was estimated to cost around Rs 300 crore.

The firm carried out a survey for the tramway project and Tata Realty chief executive officer Sanjay Ubale held discussions with IDA Chairman Prabhat Parashar and CEO Chandramauli Shukla during a visit to the city in February.

An official statement issued after the meet said the tramway was proposed on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis. It would carry about 300 passengers at a time at an average speed of 35-40km per hour.

"They (Tata Realty) were quite keen. They carried out a survey and even held discussions with (France-based company) Translohr for the project," said an official.So what happened? "There was a sudden lack of interest at the higher levels so we too decided not to pursue it aggressively," he said.

Insiders said the reluctance was surprising as the tram offered better potential than the metro, at least as the things stood. "It's the best solution for Indore. The city should have a rail-based public transport system," said an official.Although there's talk of setting up a metro system he said it would be very costly and also take time. "The tram would have been a good way to introduce Indore to a rail-based public transport system," he added.

When contacted chief executive officer Dipak Singh said he couldn't comment on the matter as it predated his arrival at the IDA. "The proposal was mooted before I joined so I'll have to look up the details before I can say anything," he told HT.